Tag Archives: photography

How to fake smile

I thought you’d all be pleased to know that I’ve been working on my fake smile.

My journey all began when I realized that in every picture of me smiling for the past 27 years (my whole life), my eyes are both squinty and asymmetrical. My cheeks are stretched out, wrinkles are forming every which where, and it can be quite . . . funny lookin’. This started when I was young, and thought that smiling was supposed to be a grotesque face contortion:

I blame the untimely appearance of my sister Erica. I had everything under control, and she just had to come along and pull the rug out from under me. I was queen! Me, me, me! And then suddenly it was all about this squalling tiny thing with no hair. No wonder I favored a bleak grimace.

I recently decided it was high time in my life to create a fake smile–one that all happened on the lips, leaving the eyes relaxed and as open as possible. I wanted people to realize that there are actually eyes in there, not just slivers of shadow. I wanted to improve my photographic track-record.

After her untimely disruption of my world 25 years ago, Erica recently redeemed herself by helping me practice my smiling skills at a little cafe in Boulder Junction during Family Vacay 2010. When she understood the great wisdom of what I was endeavoring to achieve, she whipped out her camera and photographed my first attempts.

If you are seeking to work on your own fake smile, here is a set of instructions to help you on your way.

First:

Observe your real smile. Identify the points of change.

My points of change: less wrinkles all around. More eyes. Less like the Grinch and more like Halle Berry.

Now that you’ve identified the areas of opportunity, stretch the face. It’s important to limber up your skin before you try anything at all. This will help avoid training injuries.

This part can get pretty frightening for onlookers, so most of you may want to do this with only a few trusted loved ones present. And most of you may choose not to photograph the occasion, since this is blackmail in the workings.

Once your facial muscles are feeling warm and relaxed, make your first attempt.

Get some feedback immediately. My sister quickly pointed out that it was a disaster and it was even worse than my real smile.  “We’re going for symmetrical eyes! Symmetrical!” she coached, wondering if I would ever get it. Time for take #2. It may help to look at something truly amusing to put the right vibe into your attempt. Thankfully, we had this nearby poster to help matters out.

Quick, while you’re mildly amused, plaster the “fakey” on your lips.

Ta-daa!

Great, isn’t it? I think I more than doubled the exposed surface area of my eyeballs! I think I reduced the Grinch wrinkles by at least 50%, what do you think?

A little blank and expressionless for a smile, you say? A little lifeless?? Well no one asked your opinion anyway!

You know . . . maybe it is a little flat. A little stiff. Where’s the sincerity? Where’s the joy? I may need a follow-up lesson to work out the kinks, Erica. Maybe you could drive on up here, eh? Because folks, Erica has completely mastered the relaxed smile that also radiates energy. Just look at her wedding pictures here, or the shots of her on the dock here for proof. My issues may be rooted in my all-or-nothing personality; I can’t smile partially. It’s either the full wrinkly smile experience, or it’s a flat lifeless mask. Why can’t I learn to do an awesome halvsies smile? And why can’t I look exactly like Halle Berry? Why??

And on that cliffhanger, I am signing out. I may choose to do a follow-up post charting my progress up the learning curve–but I may not. This blog is all about the suspense.

Thanks all for joining me today. Erica is available and on-call for fake smile training sessions. It’s a deal, she only charges $50,000 plus hidden fees and extra charges.

Since I was her first client, I got away with purchasing our coffees. Or did she purchase them? It’s hard to recall.

Playing with shutter speed

Shutter speed is the length of time a camera’s shutter is open–essentially, how fast it goes “click” when you press the button to take the picture. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second, so 1/10 is actually a pretty long and slow shutter speed, whereas 1/400 is very short and quick. On a practical level, the faster the shutter speed, the more “frozen” the action you capture–in the picture above, the droplets of water and the shadows they cast on my arm and face are frozen in place. Slowing down the shutter speed will mean motion in your pictures has a “blur” to it, which can be frustrating when you want a crisp image, but great when you play with it in the right way and are able to capture a sense of movement.

If you have a camera that allows you to manually set your shutter speed, I’d like to encourage you to play with it. My camera (Nikon D5000) has a setting called “S”, which stands for “Shutter priority.” I can dial the shutter speed up, or dial it down with the little rotator thingy. By using this setting, the camera will automatically adjust the aperture for you so that you don’t have to worry about any other settings and can simply focus on setting your desired shutter speed.

“Rotator thingy.” Don’t you love how precise I am?

Here are some fun examples of what can happen with different shutter speeds.

FAST SHUTTER SPEED (1/250 or faster)

A fast shutter speed will freeze your subject, like this picture of my friend Vessie I posted a couple weeks ago.

My friend Vessie took these shots of me when we were swimming/sunbathing at Pony Pasture in Richmond.

Please ignore the dorky expression on my face in the picture above–the point is the frozen arc of water.

And no, in case you’re wondering, the sunbathing didn’t do any good. I am still as white as bleached flour, though I may have gained an extra freckle or two. And a couple pounds from all the snacks we brought–yeah, that too.

It’s also fun to use a fast shutter speed to freeze pets in motion, like my sister Erica’s cat Teds. The shutter speed wasn’t quite fast enough, so it’s not as crisp as I would want it, but you get the point.

Children in motion are always a favorite–you can capture the most bizarre, hilarious expressions. This is my friend Eve’s son. This picture just makes me laugh.

SLOW SHUTTER SPEED (1/30 or slower)

Here is another Vessie-flipping-her-hair picture, but with a slower shutter speed. Unlike the one I posted above, this one captures the motion of her head.

I also used a very slow shutter speed (1/2 second up to 5 or 6 seconds long) for some camp fire pictures at Family Vacay 2010, up in the North woods of Wisconsin.

As you can see, the camera has captured the motion of the people, but also the motion of the embers floating upwards–we can see the whole trail they follow.

Don’t the trails of light kind of look like party streamers?

You can use this same technique to capture moving traffic at night so that your final picture shows trails of light instead of individual vehicles.

I should note at this point that when your shutter speed is very slow (especially 1/30 or longer), any movement of the camera will result in a blurry picture, so make sure you have a tripod or tripod substitue. I have a tiny tabletop tripod that’s about the height of my hand. I love that thing, mainly because it’s so small and folds up so nicely that I can slip it into my purse. In fact, I always carry it with me. You never know when you’ll be going about your regular business and suddenly need to capture an image with a slow shutter speed–you gotta be ready in this crazy world, I’m telling you. But no need to dash out and purchase a tripod–you can also simply set your camera on a chair or table, and use books or magazines to prop it up at the right angle so that it can capture the frame you want.

You can also use changes in shutter speed to portray water differently. Here is a picture with fast shutter speed (1/400).

See how the water is “frozen” in action?

However, by slowing down the shutter speed to 1/2 second or even multiple seconds, you can achieve that ethereal, smooth water effect that many photographers like to play with (click here for an example). I had full intentions of giving you an example from my own camera . . . but there’s a piece to this that I couldn’t figure out. With my shutter speed set so slow and in the bright daytime sun, my camera was “absorbing” too much light. I set my ISO (essentially, the sensitivity of the camera to light) as low as possible. I made sure my aperture was as small as possible (f22)–but with a shutter speed of even 1/5 of a second, there was still so much dang light that every picture I took was simply bright white. Any more experienced photographers know how to fix that problem?

Anyway, go forth into the world and play with your camera settings! I am by no means an expert, but if I can encourage any one person to switch out of “automatic” and start using their camera to a fuller potential, I will have achieved my mission here.

For tomorrow, the roast recipe I promised you last week. In the meantime, cheerio!